johniam

By then they weren't sheep anymore they were 'athletes'. LCM once said that when he was a pass receiver in college he got knocked down and his coach yelled at him "GET UP, MARTINDALE, YOU CAN SLEEP LATER!" So if yelling helps an athlete...you see where I'm going.

Now THAT post was really boring.

I think it's great. One of the last ROAs I went to the children's fellowship tent was near the big tent and I'm walking to the big tent and I see this 5 year old kid with a nametag that says Victor Paul Wierwille. I took note of it but didn't hear the name again (grandson's) until sowers.

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I'm a little curious. Would you please explain to me what you mean when you say, "Sincere religious people who were full of devil spirits"?, "Baptized it and called it Christianity"? Baptized what, PFAL? "The integrity of the Word to tell on all of them"? To tell what on all of who? I'm not trying to be a smart foot, I really don't understand what you're saying.

I was responding to your opinion that pfal was boring. IMO, one thing that made pfal not boring was the separation VP made between religion and true Christianity. That connected a lot of dots for a lot of people. The integrity of the word made the bible the written standard for faith and practice. We could show people from scripture that Jesus isn't God, the dead are dead, and SIT did NOT go out with the first century apostles. That's what rattled the adversary's cage and what made us a cult. The adversary's religion division's only defense to that was to shout us down. CULT! CULT! CULT! It pretty well worked, too.

Anybody see the 1996 movie Harriet the Spy? Nickelodean film. Harriet is an 11 year old girl who keeps a diary and makes observations in it about everything, including her school friends. One of her school friends she thinks is a dork. She writes, "Dedorkification takes time; you have to want to be cured". Not a bad movie Rosie O'Donnell is in it.

quote: So there's no God and there's no devil. It's all just perception?

If you're God, then, yes, your perception is literally everything, but if you're not God, then your perception is just another brick in the wall and if the wall is built on the rock Christ it will end well, but if it's built on anything else it won't. You're going to be a brick in somebody's wall; might as well be the right one!

Magoo was one of the characters in the 1968 movie the Glory Stompers.

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You know, the dirty little secret is that PFAL was, well, boring!

Was it, now? Sure it was. It led to all these posts, didn't it. But, yes, it was boring. Especially all the parts where...let's see...

Sincere religious people who were full of devil spirits. Baptized it and called it Christianity. The fear in the heart and the life of that mother. Plus the integrity of the word to tell on all of them. Yeah, bored the hell out of me.

So there's no God and there's no devil. It's all just perception?

quote: I would phrase this as it's hard to fall hook line and sinker without cutting off opposing information from friends, family, and ministers.

Skyrider has forgotten more about this than you and I will ever know.

Oh, McGoo, you've done it again.

What? Too graphic for you?

I had no preconceived ideas about Christianity before taking pfal. My first class was 12 new students, 10 of which finished the class. Over the years, I saw most people who didn't finish the class had help. There was some person in their life who constantly contradicted the information in the class after every session. A minister, a friend, somebody. Hard to learn anything with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake at the same time.

The classic pfal sodomization I saw was in 1987 or 88. These people really made us look stupid. It was a tape class, 8 new students. But 2 (at least 2) of the new students were plants. Not directly by the adversary, but by some megachurch reverend. To the uninformed, a plant was a term used to describe a new student in a class who was 'planted' there by the adversary for the purpose of sabotaging the impact of the class. These people were on a "mission from God". Which god?

One of the plants was a pretty girl who acted very unassuming. But at every single break, like clockwork, she would run outside and her boyfriend would zoom up in his pickup truck and whisk her off during which time she would eject the mini cassette tape and replace it with another. We didn't suspect this at the time. The boyfriend always got her back in time for the next session. So these good legitimate Christians' consciences allowed them to violate a copyright. Nice.

The other plant was a large bodied guy who was signed up for the class by someone other than whoever signed the pretty girl up. We had no reason to suspect they knew each other. The big guy was there for muscle just in case the girl got caught, cause you know these cult people have no consciences, they'd smack this girl around you know. The class ended and most of the new students just disappeared.

At this time I was an assistant manager for a Burger King. A year later, I was working on a Saturday afternoon and guess who should walk in? The pretty girl, her boyfriend, the big guy, and another girl. I was dressed in my polished and shining polyester mgrs. uniform. They couldn't place where they'd seen me before. I said the name of the believer who signed the big guy up for the class. They looked at me, then at each other, then at me again, bewildered. I enjoyed the cheap thrill of watching them for a few seconds, then took their orders and got them their food without further incident.

Even though they stole a copy of the class, I tend to look at it as...just maybe somebody who listened to those tapes would benefit from real spiritual light rather than the religious counterfeit.

Dorky is just another 'man's judgement' word with constant 'flavors of the month'.

The Beatles represented several things. Creativity, rebellion, free speech, music, fashion, entrepreneurism, the adults just couldn't sweep them under the rug like they could everything else. The hairstyles and some of their lyrics are dinosaurs, but their overall impact is still felt.

In April me and 2 believer friends played 8 Beatle songs in a bar that has a Beatle's night annually. We're doing it again in 2 weekends at another bar. The Beatles live, "dorky" or not.

I figured by now that several people would have replied to this, but I guess I'll take a stab.

quote: Who do you think of, when you think of Jesus Christ? Jesus came to “put a face” on God – so that rather than the idea of a loving God, we got to see how God would work, in action. Jesus exemplified God in his earthly life.

Jesus. The King of kinds. The Lord of lords. The only begotten son of God. The one now seated at the right hand of God. The one who is worthy to open the scroll and the seven seals. The one on the magnificent horse who leads his troops in the War to end all Wars.

Jesus. The servant. The healer. The prophet, arguer, unsettler. The one who had time for people, yet avoided them too. The one who loved kids, but didn’t have any. Touchy-feely. Defiant, occasionally angry. Did all the right religious things, most of the time. Would talk to anybody.

Jesus. A son, a brother. One of the lads, who hung around with a load of mates; the leader of the pack. Perhaps a bit of an oddity, not being married when so many his age were. Bit of a party-goer, enjoyed a drink or two, liked his food; didn't give parties though.

All this stuff is true, and relevant. Jesus' first recorded words were "I must be about my Father's business". His last before dying were, "It (his Father's business) is finished". He had a job to do and he never lost focus of that. IMO this is a big factor as to how he could live in this world as a human and still be without sin. He is the only one who could ever have done this and be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

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If Jesus is the face of God, that we can relate to – who exemplifies Jesus, to you, in a way can be seen and followed now?

A world leader – a politician? Mother Theresa? Archbishop Romero? The Pope? The archbishop of Canterbury? Your church minister? Your Mum, Dad, spouse, neighbour? Your boss or colleague? Medical staff?

What face does Jesus wear, for you? How do you “relate” to him? There might be more than one person – perhaps most of your church congregation? (yeah, right) – that you can visualise as modelling aspects of Jesus’s life. As your role model.

As for someone I could hang out with and relate to and learn from? The clergy I see regularly. Well, them more than anyone else. Certainly more than somebody on TV. Are they perfect like Jesus? No. Am I perfect to my wife and kids? God, no.

In twi we were always told to see the Christ in each other rather than our flesh. I think the best spiritual leaders we had (twi or elsewhere) were those who could do that on any kind of regular basis. If you see the same people all the time, then You're GOING to look at their flesh and stereotype them just like everybody in the world does. Unless you have an extra gear somewhere.

I don't think you have to believe in God to want to help people. You don't have to be Superman, either.

I think that wanting to help people is one of those appetites God put in people from creation. I suppose that appetite can be squelched if you try to help and it backfires and you get yelled at. That could even happen to a little kid. But, yeah, by the time we're as old as we are, if we have a habit of thinking about God and asking him to help us be our best, then He can put us in situations like that.

This is about 10 years ago. I was having lunch at a Boston Market. Usually they get my food to me before my coffee is ready, so I'd already chosen a booth and they called my name to tell me to come get my coffee. As I was heading back to my booth (coffee cup in hand), an elderly woman was attempting to sit in a chair. Their floors are tiled, and the chair she was trying to sit in started moving away from her and she was losing her balance and would have fallen except for ...me. I saw what was happening and in one quick motion, set the coffee cup down on a table, grabbed hold of her under each arm, slowly pulled her upright and repositioned the chair and told her to try again. She was rattled, but did so successfully.

Her family, a married couple and 2 or 3 kids came over and curtly thanked me. I got the impression they thought she was a pain but, if for no other reason, the old lady must have been blessed that I cared enough to try to help her. I wasn't thinking about God, though. I was just thankful I didn't screw it up. Do I have the wrong attitude?

This has been happening for quite awhile. It's human nature taken to an extreme. The professional media people have been invasive for a long time. The worst of them have a perverse sense of power by rationalizing minding other peoples' business into "making a difference".

Now that we have social networking, the average person becomes his/her own kind of journalist and is capable of the same.

I haven't seen any posts by him for quite awhile; don't know what's up with him. My family is leaving today for an Alaskan cruise on Holland America. We'll be in his city on June 4th from 7AM till 6PM. If possible I'd love to meet him. I know 2 people in STL who know him (Mark G and Karen T). If anybody can get this info to him, I'd appreciate it.

I have 2 sons who are autistic. The elder didn't talk until he was 4 or 5. He wasn't diagnosed until he was 6, and after that he improved dramatically. He's 23 now and has a job. His verbal communication is still weird sometimes, but he's doing OK. The younger just graduated HS with a GPA of 3.33 plus. Both kids know how to use a computer and receive services to help them socially. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the special school district in St. Louis. Both kids threw tantrums at school every so often, but didn't hit themselves in the head like some of their classmates.

The biggest thing is that both of them were able to respond to love like any other kid. The professional people we saw never discouraged us from interacting with the kids in our own way. Some parents of disabled kids feel so sorry for them that they don't discipline them. IMO not a good idea. Our kids responded to not only love but correction. I think most challenged kids can handle that, but some autism is more severe than others.

Tzaia, I wish you and your family the best in dealing with this.

Falling off a bookcase? OK. Got it! TWI, promoting that the law of believing works for saint and sinner alike, would occasionally advertise books and ideas that were not Christian. One such was a book called, The magic of thinking big. Remember it...anybody. I read it. In one chapter a large bodied man wanted to be a salesman. But his size was so intimidating to prospective customers that he had little success. Then he tried a trick. He even practiced this at home. He would walk into the office of a customer and deliberately spill the entire contents of his briefcase, then pretend to have given up on the sale "Oh. I'm so sorry, let me pick this up and leave, sir, I'm so sorry, etc." This strategy got the person to lighten up about his size and almost always resulted in a sale. So, at least here, it did work.

Excathedra, I was talking about how God is no respecter of persons, but people are, and sexual attraction is one way that people are respecters of persons.

Richard Thomas says that when he was apprentice corps, Dr. Rawlins was his biggest sponsor. He lived in the same house she did and that she was a heavy hitter, ABS wise, and she could call VP any time about anything. She always wanted to have twig after a delivery, even if it was 3AM. Overall, Richard described the experience as sometimes inconvenient, but not abusive.

Come to think of it, scripture says that God is not a respecter of persons, but people sure are. Celebrity itself is respect of persons. So is sexual attraction. But, yeah, some people acted like twi people are pure and clean and don't DO that. Uh huh.

Twenty nine years. Twenty nine years before that he hadn't even gone to India yet.

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IMHO, once the first rape was reported, vpw was complicit in any succeeding ones,

since he had a fiduciary responsibility to remove obvious risks from the program,

and chose not to do so-rather vocally.

So when did the catholic church become complicit the first time an adolescent boy got raped by a priest after confession?

Yeah, there was Tony Collins, Jim Schoenfeld the hockey player. No scripture on how to deal with celebrities other than "no respect of persons". There were no celebs when the bible was written. Jesus was really the first celebrity who wasn't royalty or military. The people who murdered him certainly weren't respecters of persons lol.

As for JWs, I personally have never been in a discussion with one which didn't turn into an argument. Romans says as much as possible live peaceable with all, but it's not always possible.

WG that reminds me of Psycho 3. This nun gets kicked out and stumbles into the Bates motel. Norman puts her in the same room Janet Leigh was in for the shower scene in the first Psycho movie. The nun is so whacked out with guilt she tries to kill herself in the bathtub and when Norman comes in to repeat the shower scene, she'd already cut her wrists and she doesn't see Norman with a knife, she sees mother Mary with a silver cross. Norman calls 911 and they save her and Norman's a hero...for a time.

But you saw Mrs. W, the nun saw Mary. That's just what it reminded me of.

Yeah, what was the context? Fifty? Tomorrow I turn 60!